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“Everything that I am seeing is all physically balanced on the cusp between the now of things and the big, incomprehensible change to come. If it is true that every living particle that I can see and not see, and all that is living and perhaps unliving too, is trimming its sails and coming about and heading back to port, what does that mean? Where are we bound? Is it any different, in fact, from where we were going in the first place?” 13

Louise Erdrich’s stunning new novel, Future Home of the Living God, is an ecstatic, psychedelic, feminist masterpiece: one that tells stories about the raw power of women, of mothers, of the continuance of life against all odds: and it is about the inevitable, horrific ways that men in power will dirty and corrupt change in an effort to control the uncontrollable.

A series of huge and irreversible environmental disasters have set into motion massive global changes; whether or not human-kind can survive those changes is unknown. Everything that is known, or even guessed, about the origins of life on planet Earth are being called into question and no one — neither scientist, politician, nor religious leader — can predict what will happen to those left on earth. The question that emerges as even more urgent to answer is: what will happen to those who are about to arrive on earth?

As governments crumble and people devolve into violence and chaos, the call to round up all pregnant women and detain them against their will is is growing louder. Cedar Hawk Songmaker, a young Ojibwe woman living in Minneapolis, sees the world crumbling and is unsure where to turn: towards her white, adoptive parents or to her biological Native parents on their reservation in Norther Minnesota? Who can best protect her during these uncertain times, and who can best protect her unborn baby from a government that wants to take it for their own experimentation?

” I know this: there is nothing one human being will not due to another. We need a god who sides with the wretched. One willing to share misery.” 153

The dystopic story that follows is riveting and horrifying, but expertly written by Erdrich. The author blends Native story-telling, Catholicism, New-Age spirituality, evolutionary biology, and her own unique visions of the future to tell Cedar’s tale. What will become of women, she asks, when men in power decided that they will seize complete control of human reproduction? The answer, nothing good.

The future of the world is not a devastating and dramatic end but a complete reversal. Things begin to move backward, time reverses, and humans shed their civility in response. Women, as always, are simultaneously the key to the Future and extraordinarily vulnerable to the ill-intent of science, religion, and men who want to claim their power to create life for their own.

This book is, I say again, a masterpiece of science fiction — of fiction! — and should not be missed.

“That my body is capable of building a container for the human spirit has inspired in me the will to survive. It has also shown me truths. Someone has been tortured on my behalf. Someone has been tortured on your behalf. Some in this world will always be suffering for your behalf. If it comes your time to suffer, just remember. Someone suffered for you. That is what taking on the cloak of human flesh is all about, the willingness to hurt for another human being.” 205

The women of Stellar Plains, New Jersey are preoccupied with sex: how much they are having, who they are having it with, whether they are enjoying it, and what to do to get more. From teenage girls who are just beginning their sexual lives to long-married women for whom sex is a distant memory; it is on the minds of the women of the entire town this December. (To be fair, sex is on the minds of the men in town too, but given that this is true most of the time, the thoughts the male residents of the town have about sex are less important in this story.)

The intimate lives of the women in town are heading for a shake-up, although in the opening pages of the book none of the female characters in The Uncoupling suspect what they are in for. It is only when the high school drama teacher selects the Greek play, Lysistrata, that a cold wind begins to blow into the bedrooms of every woman in the story.

In the play, the women of ancient Greece are sick of the decades-long war that has stolen their husbands away, some forever, and decide they only have one weapon left: sex. They will withhold sex from all men until the war is brought to an end. In The Uncoupling, it is as if the ideas from the play begin to cast a spell one woman after another, causing each to inexplicably and irrevocably refuse to have sex.

It becomes clear that each woman’s refusal of sex has a deeply different cause from that of her neighbors. For sixteen year-old Willa, it is as if she is suddenly doubting whether love is real and whether she has let sex have too much power of her relationship. For Ruth, a mother of two toddlers and a newborn, the respite from her husband’s lackluster nightly sex sessions allows her time to set some guidelines for self-care which include stopping sex until her husband makes it worth her while. For Leanne, pausing all three sexual relationships she is in forces her to take a hard look at whether causal sex is really all she wants as she approaches 30. For forty-year-old Dory, it is the first time is more than 20-years of marriage that sex has not been at the center of her marriage and her sudden refusal shines a light on what the rest of her relationship with her husband brings to her life. For Bev, whose recent weight gain has led to conflict in the bedroom, the refusal to have sex is a demand to her husband: love me as I am (not as I was) or get out.

Wolitzer tells her tale with laugh-out loud humor as well as deep insight into the social forces that influence who a woman sleeps with and why. The book sheds a light on the various paths to sexual fulfillment women follow and attempts to remove the shame women feel about their bodies and their sexual appetites. A wonderful book that I highly recommend, even if you have found Wolitzer’s other works to be difficult to read.

Younger: A Breakthrough Program to Reset your Genes, Reverse Aging, and Turn Back the Clock 10 Years

For the record, I rarely read self-help health books. While I am happy to consider all other aspects of self-improvement, I find books that tout one specific approach to “healthy” living to be gimmicky and overly specific. However, after hearing Dr. Gottfried’s interview on a podcast (http://happierinhollywood.com/episode19/ ) I was sufficiently intrigued by her promises for easing the downsides of aging and — lets be real — her ideas for how to look better with little effort.

The reality of the book is, of course, far less simple than its author (or book jacket) profess. Grounded in very specific information about genetics, medical jargon, and peppered with studies that support her claims, Gottfried lays out what she calls her “protocol” to slow aging and restore a more youthful appearance. At its core, the book encourages readers to adopt the mainstays of improved health: more sleep, less stress, healthy eating, more exercise, and basic self-care. Those recommendations are presented in a clear and straight-forward ways: with plenty of research for those (do you exist?) who still need to be convinced that these changes are vital to good health.

When the book begins to divert from that core message, things get complicated…and expensive. To support your good health efforts, Gottfried offers a long, long, long list of practices to adopt to “turn back the clock.” During your waking hours (which in this protocol is specified as approximately 6AM to 10PM), readers are asked to spend almost every single moment taking action to slow the aging process. Among these activities that the doctor recommendations: swallowing dozens upon dozens of supplements; drinking collagen smoothies; fasting; drinking low-mold coffee or “chain amino-acid” teas; meditating, eating two or more pounds of vegetables a day; eliminating gluten, dairy, and sugar; and — all the while — increasing the amount time you exercise, meditate, and sleep.

In addition to those activities, which I agree all seem largely beneficial, there are even more things readers are encouraged to adopt — although when they are to find time for even more activities than the core “protocol” encourages, I’m not sure — a list that grows each and every chapter. A few samples of extra ideas to work into your “restore youth” regimen: sesame oil tooth-pulling, making bone broth, wearing “amber tinted glasses” after dark, sitting in from of a light therapy box, taking yoga several times a week, spending 20-40 minutes a day in a sauna, and many more.

Even more unsettling this (mind-boggling) long list, it the cost of this “protocol” is bordering on outrageous. Hundreds of dollars of supplements, powders, genetic testing, organic foods and cosmetics, special light-bulbs, light boxes, toxin-removal treatments, electric toothbrushes, bio-dynamic wine, home mold-removal/water filtration systems, and installing a sauna! And that is the short list! To incorporate even some of her suggestions would be a huge financial commitment and at times it seems that this book is for wealthy women, since there are very few inexpensive options (other than sleeping more and walking) offered in lieu of the more costly ones. I would love to see her write a companion book for Younger that is aimed at low or fixed-income women living in rentals that they cannot modify; women who cannot afford gym memberships or Whole Foods groceries, not to mention $200+ per month supplement fees or sauna installations.

Gottfried is no-doubt passionate about promoting good health, but her rules are many, complex, and costly (and, to be real, a bit ridiculous at times). I am sure that should you adopt her protocol, the reader would see improved health and younger looks but I fear for the woman who tried to undertake all of her suggestions…it would be a full-time job!